Vietnam’s shift from a centrally planned to a market economy has transformed the country from one of the poorest in the world into a lower middle-income country. Vietnam now is one of the most dynamic emerging countries in East Asia region.
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The Second Transmission and Distribution
Project for Vietnam received a moderately satisfactory
outcome rating with moderate risk to development outcome.
Both the Bank... Show More + and Borrower received moderately satisfactory
performance ratings. No components were revised although
several subprojects in Component 1 of the original financing
were dropped or replaced by similar subprojects, while seven
new projects were added in the Additional Financing (AF).
Also, a new technical assistance: capacity building to
enhance National Power Transmission Corporations (NPT)
capabilities in the critical areas of investment planning
and financing, debt management, and the management of
regulatory affairs was included in Component 3. The closing
date was extended by six months in the first restricting, to
allow adequate time for processing the AF. Secondly,
following the approval of the AF on March 29, 2011, the
closing date was extended another three months to provide
enough time for implementing newly added subprojects. The
following five lessons were learned through this project:
(1) Flexibility is important when a project has a large
number of subprojects that are implemented over a long
period of time. This approach helps to better select
important T&D subprojects, leading to efficient use of
funds and better achievement of the PDO. (2) Project design
needs to consider readiness of subprojects so as to realize
smooth implementation and timely disbursement. (3) The
previous approach described in 2 is far more critical for
implementing subprojects that introduce technologies where
implementing agencies has limited experience. (4) In a
transmission and distribution project, key performance
indicators should be designed to capture impacts that are
brought by specific investments. (5) Project financial
covenants turned out to be ineffective and the financial
challenges need to be addressed more holistically at the
overall sector level. Show Less -

This paper for the Financial Sector
Modernization and Information Management Project for Vietnam
seeks the following changes: First, the proposed amendments
to the Financing... Show More + Agreement include extension of the closing
date by 24 months; modification of the definition of
incremental operating costs; revision of some Project
activities; adding supplementary procurement methods;
revision of the internal auditing task; removal of the WB
review thresholds; and modification of some definitions in
the Appendix to facilitate necessary legal reference.
Second, the Disbursement Table is changed and a new
disbursement category is introduced to contain all
undisbursed IDA funds; some component costs are revised to
reflect savings and reallocations. Finally, outcome
indicators and intermediate results indicators for group A
are kept but are refined to make them more specific and
better measurable and verifiable. The PDO, outcomes, scope,
and design of the project remain intact. The reason for
restructuring is the delay in the Project implementation
during its initial years and inability to achieve the PDO
before the original Closing Date. The Project is now
disbursing well and the PDO achievement has been assessed by
the SBV and the WB team as highly likely if the Closing Date
is extended by 24 months. Show Less -

The Second Rural Energy Proejct for the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam improved access to good
quality, affordable electricity services to rural
communities, in an efficient... Show More + and sustainable manner to
support Vietnam's efforts towards socio-economic
development. The overall and also the Global Environmnet
Objective outcomes of the project were rated satisfactory
with the Bank and Borrower performing satisfactory. The
risks to development and to the Global Environmnet Objective
were rated moderate. Main risk factors that may affect the
sustainability of the project outcomes include increasing
energy consumption in project areas; technical capability of
the Local Distribution Utility and Power Company for
operation and maintenance; and financial stability of the
LDUs and PCs. Lessons learned concern the areas of project
design and contract management, social and envrionmental
safeguards, and financial management. Key performance
indicators (in particular, quantitative indicators) needed
to be set using the latest cost information and data, and
updated where appropriate, especially if there is an
additional financing. This lesson is particularly important
in the presence of steep currency inflation or deflation.
Also, community supervision of technical quality and
safeguards aspects was a highly effective means of enhancing
community ownership. This helped mitigate disputes and helps
resolve issues promptly. Show Less -

The global economy is showing signs of
recovery, but at an uneven pace; global growth is expected
to rise modestly to 2.6 percent in 2014, and an average 3.3
percent... Show More + in 201517. The gradual strengthening of activity
in the Euro Area and especially the US will boost demand for
exports from developing East Asia and Pacific (EAP), helping
the region sustain its growth performance. There are early
signs of firming up of economic recovery in Vietnam. GDP
growth picked up to a relatively brisk 6.2 percent (y-o-y)
in the third quarter of 2014, contributing to an overall
growth rate of 5.6 percent for the first nine months of the
year. Credit growth continues to come in below target,
hampering the State Bank of Vietnam's efforts to carry
out credit expansion to support economic growth. The
Government has taken some important measures in 2014 to
improve business conditions, which are expected to bear
fruit from 2015 onward. The Government issued Resolution 19
(March 18, 2014), which prioritizes shortening the time for
processing and completion of administrative procedures,
reducing administrative costs, and strengthening
transparency and accountability of state administrative
agencies. The Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP)
provides a comprehensive framework to identify financial
system vulnerabilities and develop appropriate policy
responses. Recognizing its importance, in July 2012 the
Government of Vietnam invited the World Bank and the IMF to
initiate an FSAP for Vietnam. In recent years the
Vietnamese economy had shown signs of corporate and
financial distress, and slowdown in GDP growth. In response
to this, the government announced a comprehensive reform
program designed to address the problems faced by the
financial and corporate sectors. The FSAP provides a broad
set of policy recommendations that can be used to
operationalize the SEDP and the banking restructuring
program. The recommendations include recapitalization
plans, the workout of NPLs, regulatory and other reforms,
and the temporary extension of the safety net. Show Less -

Ratings for the Agriculture
Competitiveness Project for Vietnam were as follows:
outcomes were moderately satisfactory, risk to development
outcome was moderate, Bank... Show More + performance was moderately
satisfactory, and Borrower performance was moderately
satisfactory. Some lessons learned included: projects
designed to accommodate interventions in a wide range of
commodities, technologies, and value chains avoid the risk
of picking the wrong winners and enable considerable
flexibility in the face of changing market circumstances.
Facilitating increased private service provision, contract
farming, and more multi-dimensional public-private
collaborative initiatives in agriculture requires certain
types of experience and sets of soft skills which are not
readily available at the level of provincial (let alone
district) agricultural departments. Egalitarian distribution
of infrastructure upgrades is a natural response to social
and political pressures on government, yet this limits the
scope for synergies with other (technical, financial, etc.)
interventions related to agricultural value chains. Greater
impact may be achieved through the clustering of
interventions in certain locales - featuring high growth
potential or especially difficult circumstances. Some of the
most valuable results from interventions which demonstrate
and promote institutional or other innovations may be
difficult to gauge through traditional quantitative
indicators. Promoting complex relationships between farmer
organizations (FOs) and agribusiness companies should
normally be done in stages. Strong FOs provide the basis for
a more balanced partnership, in terms of negotiating prices
and other terms; and provide for a more efficient
implementation of project-related activities, including
communications, training, procurement, etc. Show Less -

The development objective of the
Sustainable Agriculture Transformation Project for Vietnam
is to contribute to the deployment and implementation of the
agricultural... Show More + restructuring plan (ARP) by providing capacity
building and organizational development to the sector and
re-organizing production to increase value addition and
sustainability of rice and coffee sub-sectors in two key
commodity production zones of Vietnam such as Mekong delta
and Central Highlands regions. Some of the negative impacts
and mitigation measures include: (1) providing capacity
building (CB) and organizational development (OD) to
ministry of agriculture and rural development (MARD),
selected provincial department of agriculture and rural
development (DARDs), other public sector agencies, and value
chain actors (including banks); (2) increasing rice farmers
income, reducing negative environmental impacts from rice
intensified farming, and enhancing the competitiveness of
the rice sector; (3) increasing coffee farmers incomes and
reducing negative environmental impacts of intensive coffee
production via adoption of sustainable farming practices;
and (4) providing necessary training, equipment, facilities,
and operating costs for the performance of monitoring and
evaluation (M and E), financial management, procurement,
long-term and short-term technical assistance for project
management, developing an M and E system for the project in
line with the automated teller machine (AMT) established by
ministry of planning and investment. Show Less -

The objective of the Ho Chi Minh City
Green Transport Project for Vietnam is to increase
accessibility to job opportunities and urban services for
citizens residing... Show More + in the south-western side of the city and
other adjacent areas to the project corridor, by providing
an alternative that is safer, more secure, more efficient,
integrated with land development along the corridor and
integrated with the proposed metro lines, and generates
fewer emissions. Negative impacts include: loss of crops and
trees, loss of assets, loss of income, loss of public
structures, and loss of graves. Mitigation measures include:
for annual and perennial standing crops, trees or
aquaculture products, regardless of the legal status of the
land, cash compensation at full replacement cost will be
paid to the affected persons who cultivate the land. The
compensation will be sufficient to replace the lost standing
crops, trees or aquaculture products at local market rates.
Perennial crops or trees will be compensated at a rate
calculated on their life time productivity. Where affected
trees can be removed and transported, compensation will be
paid for the loss of the tree plus the transportation cost;
Employees who are affected by acquisition of residential or
commercial land acquisition, public land or land of
enterprises: Allowance equivalent to the minimum salary as
per the city regulations to affected employees during the
transition period which can be for a maximum of 6 months.
Assistance in finding alternative employment will also be
given; and In cases where community infrastructure such as
schools, factories, water sources, roads, sewage systems,
medical centers, distribution or transmission, communication
and fiber cable are damaged and the community wishes to
reuse them, the project will ensure that these are restored
or repaired as the case may be, at no cost to the community.
Public infrastructure directly related to peoples
livelihoods and developmental needs, such as irrigation
canals, school, clinic, etc. will be restored and rebuilt to
pre-project or higher quality levels or compensated at
replacement cost, as determined through consultation with
the affected community. Show Less -